CHAPTER IV
JASON TAKES THE TRAIL
At another door he stopped, wrenching it open and laying hands upon a cord that hung within it. He jerked upon it, released it, and stood waiting with hands clenched as though in impatience, until there rose slowly into sight a platform, upon which he stepped. The platform sank slowly, carrying him downward inside a rock-faced shaft, which ended in a dimly lighted chamber, where blue men strained about a capstan and windlass by means of which the primitive lift was controlled.
"Hai! The Mouthpiece of Zitu requires a motur and one to drive it," Croft addressed the man in charge.
The fellow saluted and turned away. I saw there were several moturs parked against one of the chamber walls. And too, I recalled that Croft had found a similar arrangement in the pyramid of Himyra when first he called on Magur, save that then the room had been used to house the carriages and gnuppas of the priests.
Croft strode toward one of the waiting cars, and a man appeared. As Jason climbed to a seat he took his place at the wheel and the engine roared. Blue men set open a heavy door and stood aside. Through it the car darted out of the base of the pyramid to reach the street beyond it.
"To the palace of Jadgor, and hasten!" Jason cried.
Then, as the motur fled between the white-walled houses of Zitra, he leaned back, his face pallid in the moonlight beneath his plumes of azure. His lips parted. "Zitu—Zitu," I caught a whisper, and knew that to him in the urge of his need its progress seemed slow, no matter how swiftly it moved. Yet in reality the time was very short ere the official residence of the President of Tamarizia was reached.
Jason was out of the motur almost before it paused. And then for the first time, save as he had described it, I saw the inside of the former imperial palace, with its silver-sheathed beams supporting the roof of varicolored glass above the inner court, its tessellated pavement of sparkling crystal and silver and gold, across which, once he had gained admittance, Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, strode toward the captain of the guard.
The soldier came to attention, saluting with uplifted palm.
"Go," Croft directed. "Say to Jadgor, President of Tamarizia, and Lakkon of Aphur, that the Mouthpiece of Zitu seeks speech with them concerning a matter of importance."
"Aye, Hupor and Mouthpiece of Zitu." The captain saluted again and departed at once.
We waited, Jason and I, Croft a commanding figure in his physical presence, clouded of brow and set of lip, standing with bent crest and deep-heaving chest while the guardsmen watched out of speculative eyes this proud man of their nation who came on some urgent, undreamed mission in the night, myself seeing it all but unseen by any save Jason dimly, as he had said.
The captain returned.
"If my lord will follow...." He spoke in suggestive fashion, saluted once more, and waited his superior's pleasure.
"Lead on." Croft lifted his bended head and followed his clanking escort up a flight of crystal stairs and down a far-reaching corridor, resplendent with scarlet hangings on walls of silver and gold.
Before a door of silver embossed with the circle and cross of Zitra, the captain paused, striking three times against the metal surface with the butt of his copper sword.
Jadgor himself set the portal open, peering at Croft from dark eyes set on either side of a high-bridged, slightly aquiline nose. Seen so, he seemed a less commanding figure than in official dress, for now he was gowned merely in a shirt of silken fabric, reaching from his strong neck nearly to his heels.
"Hai, Jason, what cause, in Zitu's name, brings you to disturb our slumbers?" he began as Croft passed inside.
"Cause in plenty," Croft made answer, his glance sweeping the apartment, "of which I would speak with you and Lakkon. Cause enough to warrant the driving of sleep from your eyes."
Jadgor closed the door and turned.
"Come, then," he said, and led the way toward a farther room, hung in scarlet, furnished with a silver bed and table and carven chairs of the usual red wood, in one of which sat Lakkon.
Croft followed, and just inside the door of the sumptuous apartment he paused.
"Behold in me, Jadgor, and Lakkon, father of Naia, my wife, a messenger of evil tidings," he said hoarsely, "in that the house of Jason in the mountains has been betrayed, and the light of it removed."
"Betrayed?" Lakkon stiffened.
"Removed?" Jadgor repeated. "Jason, what mean you?"
"Sit, Jadgor," Jason suggested. "My heart is heavy within me, and there is much to be made plain concerning the affair."
Jadgor complied without shifting the scrutiny of his keen eyes from Croft's face. Croft himself drew a chair to the silver table, where the other two men had taken place. And then he told them all that had happened, from first to last, save that he omitted any mention of my presence.
As he spoke, I watched each face. Plainly the men believed him. Their expressions gave no evidence of doubt. They had been given sufficient proof of his astral ability in the past, and they did not question the truth of what he alleged he had discovered in the spirit while his physical body seemed wrapped in heavy sleep. Jadgor held his thick-set figure stiffly. He clenched his heavy hands. Horror waked on Lakkon's sternly molded features. And at the end it was Jadgor, the soldier, the patriot, the man who had labored to make strong his nation, who spoke first.
"Now, by Zitu, and by Zitu," he roared the Tamarizian double oath, and struck the burnished top of the table with his fist, "are the affronts—the annoyances—the ceaseless schemings of these spawns of Zitemku beyond Tamarizia's borders to never cease! And if not, what duty lies to Tamarizia before that in the fulfillment of which Zollaria shall be crushed? Jason, twice have you led the armies of Tamarizia against them and their allies. Gather them once more together, with my approval, and punish these treacherous beasts."
And if I had thought him more the man and less the statesman when first I entered the room and viewed him in undress, I felt myself moved to reverse my judgment now. This was no lesser spirit, stern of visage, glaring half risen from his seat toward Croft, leaning slightly toward him, still resting his weight upon the knotted knuckles of his heavy fist.
Croft, too, I am sure, was momentarily moved by Jadgor's swift readiness to resort to arms, since for an instant, as the president faced him, his own eyes fired. But then he shook his head slightly, setting the azure plumes on his helmet nodding.
"Nay," he said slowly. "Nay, Jadgor—I am a man, as thou art, and the notion quickens my pulses, but—in my judgment this matter is less to be settled by force of arms than by a resort to craft."
"Hilka!" Suddenly Lakkon's voice broke forth. "Hold! You would balk the issue? You would seek by a use of trickery—a matching of wits—to answer an insult to Tamarizia and thyself? Was it for this I gave my consent to your union with my daughter—or that she went down to the gates of Zilla's realm in the bearing of your child? Has marriage softened you so much, Jason, that the blood turns to water in your veins? Now, by Zitu—"
"Hilka! Hold!" Croft mouthed his own words at him. His face was pallid, its eyes narrowed, its lips gone livid. "Father of Naia—I respect thy surprise and grief, and therefore forgive your words. Yet speak not so concerning my position in this affair, until you consider all sides of the matter. Think you that, had I any suspicion of what was intended, I had left her whose love is the crowning glory of my existence unguarded in my house? Nay, by Zitu—she had lain in the house of Robur, son of Jadgor—safe within Himyra's walls. And take thought on what I have told you, Lakkon. Recall the oath of Kalamita. Consider, in judging my position, that a resort to arms would forfeit the life of your grandson and my child. Since you are a father, take heed of a father's fears."
His voice faltered. He bent forward, resting his head upon folded arms on the table. For the first time in all his life on Palos, Jason's haughty crest was bowed.
Jadgor glanced at Lakkon. He nodded. "By Zitu, my brother, we were overquick. It were well that Jason appears to have kept his wits."
The anger faded from Lakkon's face and he rose. Passing about the table, he laid a hand on Croft's bended shoulder.
"Your pardon, my son," he stammered in the embarrassed fashion strong men use on such occasions. "I was over hasty. What, then, do you propose?"
"As yet I know not." Jason lifted his head and turned clouded eyes on Lakkon. "Nor would I have you in this matter think me cold. Word I will send to Robur, and myself shall depart for Himyra at once. Let Jadgor give me orders for the captain of his swiftest galley. Even so my man Bathos will reach the city ere I arrive. And since this Kalamita proposes a meeting at which Zollaria's demands will be presented, it occurs to me that as a first step she should be met."
Jadgor appeared to consider. "But not by the Mouthpiece of Zitu?" he said at last.
"Nay?" Croft eyed him sharply.
Jadgor nodded. His first flash of spirit appeared to have passed. "Think you Zitu's mouthpiece would be permitted to return from such a meeting? And we are to match treachery by craft, we must guard ourselves from traps. Ill as are the circumstances that confront us, were they not a hundredfold increased with Jason in Zollaria's hands? Then indeed would Tamarizia find herself in evil case!"
Lakkon's old eyes widened under his grizzled brows. "You suspect a trap, then, Jadgor?" he questioned.
"Aye, and this lure of the flesh, this Kalamita, is connected with it," Tamarizia's president declared. Warrior, he was prone to think first of arms, but as it seemed to me now, not lacking in statecraft either, once he gave his mind to it. "To me it seems she has taken into account the hearts of men, in sending word of the meeting—deeming the husband and father would rush to his and his country's undoing without due consideration of where his act might lead. Against such an ending, thanks be to Zitu and Jason's ability to obtain knowledge in his death-like sleeps, we are forewarned, and Tamarizia keeps what yet she has. What say you, Jason?"
"That Jadgor's words lighten my position somewhat," Croft made answer. "Since, had his mind not so clearly seen what in my belief was intended, it had been no easy task to make my stand in the matter understood, and perchance I would have seemed to him and Lakkon rather a man of milk and water, than one of blood—"
"Nay," Lakkon interrupted, his face gone haggard, "forget my words. Horror of what had befallen had dulled my understanding, husband of Naia. How mean you—that Zollaria's terms shall be refused?"
"By Zitemku, the fiend of the foul pit of damnation, what else?" Jadgor roared before Croft could answer. "Does Tamarizia weaken herself or yield one hand's-breadth to that northern horde?"
Croft nodded. "Zollaria's demands may not be granted. Let that be understood," he replied to Jadgor's outburst.
Lakkon winced. "Thou canst say so, who having asked me not to think thee cold, seem yet so little moved?"
For the second time Croft stiffened at his father-in-law's words. His face flushed deeply, and he rose, towering, the splendid figure of a man, against the end of the table, while Jadgor and Lakkon watched.
"Tamarizia must not be weakened," he reaffirmed his position. "Cold I may seem to Lakkon, and little moved, and now, thanks to him, I am cold indeed. Yet have I sworn an oath not to fail her who looks on me to save her. And I shall succeed in what I am undertaking, without forgetting the interests of this nation, or—by Azil himself I swear it—let all men cease to speak of Jason as one among living men. From here I go to send a message to Robur, and after that upon a galley. Come, Jadgor, give me your order to its captain that he may prove bidable to my commands."
For a moment as he ceased speaking silence came down in the room where the lights pricked out the azure cross and wings of Azil on his cuirass, as he waited. Cold he had said to me he would become and to Jadgor and Lakkon cold—as cold as some deadly tempered weapon, in all outward seeming now he was. Lakkon's expression altered, became embarrassed. He glanced from Croft to Jadgor, and moistened his lips with his tongue.
Jadgor moved. He left his seat, found wax-coated tablets and a stylus, and returned. For a moment or two he wrote rapidly, cutting his official mandate to the captain of the galley into the virgin surface. Then, rising, once more he handed it to Croft.
"Go," he said, "and Zitu go with you. You will keep us informed in this matter?"
"Aye, as it progresses." Croft accepted the tablet. "Zitu keep you, Jadgor." He turned to leave.
"Jason," Lakkon quavered.
Jason paused.
"Depart not from me in anger. I sought not truly to give you fresh offense. And—and carry my blessing to my daughter when next you meet her in the spirit, as she has told me thou canst."
For a barely perceptible interval Croft appeared to hesitate, and then he caught a heavy breath.
"Against the father of Naia of Aphur it were hard indeed for anger to find a place in my heart. Zitu be with you, Lakkon, also," he said, and left.
Outside the room he made his way, outside the palace of Jadgor, once more to a seat in the motur, and in it toward the city walls and the foot of a mounting flight of stairs.
A sentry stood with sword and spear before them. Croft addressed him. He saluted and permitted him to pass. Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, climbed up in the silvery moonlight, his shadow a purple blot beside him, to reach the top at last. And there strangely in all that archaic scene he paused before the door of a hut, above which towered the spidery outline of a wireless mast. For an instant he turned his eyes outward over the expanse of the Central Sea, and then he passed inside.
A man seated at a table, with the key of the wireless before him, started to his feet.
"A message to Robur, Governor of Aphur in Himyra, and quickly," Croft said.
The operator regained his seat and produced his headdress, clamping it against his ears. Croft gave the message. There came the hissing crash of the spark. Strange, I found myself thinking as I watched—an anachronism surely that this youth of Palos, clad in plain tunic and sandals and leg-casings of leather, above which showed the sinewy flesh of his lower thighs and knees, should be sitting here on top of the ramparts of a walled city, hurling forth across the ocean beyond him the potential Hertzian waves. And yet it was no more strange than that I should know it—than that the grim-visaged man in the metal harness of a Tamarizian noble was the one through whose genius it was inspired.
And then the thing was done. The crashing of the spark was silenced. Croft tossed a coin on the table and passed outside and down the stairs. And when next the motur paused he gave the driver another coin and dismissed him. He stood before a galley, moored close to the semi-circular quays of Zitra's inner harbor, stretching like a pool of liquid silver beyond him to the mighty sea-doors that closed the entrance to it in the overarching walls.
But though I thrilled to the massive grandeur of the picture, Croft heeded it little. To him it was an old scene, and, too, he was ridden with the spur of haste.
"Hai! Captain of the watch, aboard the galley!" he hailed sharply and stood waiting until a head appeared above the rail of the waist and a voice replied:
"Who calls?"
"Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, with the mandate of Jadgor from the palace of Jadgor. I would come toward you," Croft made answer.
The head disappeared. For possibly two minutes nothing happened, and then a gangway was shoved out to reach the quay.
Croft strode along it, presented Jadgor's tablet to a suddenly wide awake captain, and was led to an apartment under the after-deck, richly furnished in red woods and hangings of scarlet, the personal color of Jadgor's house.
Life woke on board the galley. There was a tramping of feet, a sound of voices bawling orders, suddenly the sibilant hiss of water past the hull. The galley heeled slightly on the long arc of a circle, straightened back to an even keel. Through the windows let into the stern I became conscious of a graying of the eastern heavens, and then a shadow fell upon us. It came to me that the monster sea-doors were opened to permit our passing.
Croft sank down upon a couch of burnished copper and sighed. He turned his glance about the apartment. "Are you still here, Murray?" he questioned.
"Aye," I bent my thought upon him, and he smiled a trifle wanly as he caught the form of my answer.
"Better be going," he said. "But give me the benefit of your thoughts in the next few days. If you've waited until now, you've had recent proof of how hard it is for the father to hold his personal interests of lesser importance than matters of state."
"Nonsense, man," I returned. "We'll beat them. Once you're in Himyra, you and Robur will get your heads together, and I'm going to work collecting all the information I can obtain on the device I suggested earlier tonight."
"Do so." He nodded and stretched himself out on the couch. "I'll use it if we can think of nothing else. You and Rob—" All at once he used a diminutive form of Robur's name, of which he had told me before. "Murray, I thank Zitu for you both. I know I have your sympathy and understanding, and—I'll find the same things once I am in Himyra. I'll see you inside the next few days, of course."
From now on this narrative must become, until the end, an account of Croft's efforts toward the rescue of Naia and Jason, rather than of things experienced by myself. For now I was become little more than his lieutenant on earth—a collector of knowledge to whom, when he came in the astral presence to gain it, he told how that knowledge was to be employed.
In the body he went to Himyra first. But astrally he willed himself back that morning after I had left him, aboard Kalamita's gilded craft, where rather than the tawny siren, the lure that led him was his wife and child. Naia of Aphur—the love of her, as ever since first he had seen her, was a flame in Jason's breast.
Gor he found sleeping within the passage, sprawled barrierlike inside its door. Kalamita, too, lay wrapped in slumber, her scheming brain at rest. Inside one of the curtained apartments Maia slept also on a couch drawn crosswise of the door. Naia of Aphur alone was wakeful, brooding with troubled eyes above the sleeping infant.
To Croft, as he saw her, she seemed then the embodiment of all the meaning involved in the wonderful statue of Ga the Eternal Mother he had seen once in the quarters of the Gayana—the Tamarizian vestals brooding above the altar of the sacred fire, with the form of a babe on her knees.
Thrilling at sight of her so, he stood before her.
"Beloved," he called her.
She stiffened to attention, lifting her head. Her lips moved.
"I have waited thy coming, Jason," she whispered, her fair face lighting as she responded to his summons.
"You heard all, know all?" she questioned as Croft drew her wraithlike form inside his yearning arms.
"Aye—golden woman—and marveled at thy spirit," he made answer, ere he told her what he had accomplished and gave her Lakkon's message, mentioning at the end the possible means of rescue I had suggested.
"Zitu!" Naia faltered. "It were strange indeed, were it not, if the answer to this riddle be found by our friend of earth?"
"Aye, strange," said Jason, "yet not more so than that, despite their knowledge, I stand here now before you."
"Yet he is wise," she replied, clinging closer to him, "in that he saw quickly the true meaning of the meeting between you and herself this Zollarian woman saw fit to propose. Myself have I promised throughout the night that, once you had come again to me, I would see you warned."
Croft smiled in rueful fashion. "Jadgor, too, was against it. It would seem that all perceived the motive of it, save only Jason alone."
"Ah, but"—Naia lifted a hand to lay it against his cheek—"Jason, my beloved, was overwrought."
"Aye," he confessed; "and now it appears to him that it was on that Kalamita counted to lead him into a trap."
"And will count," said Naia, "not knowing the strange power you have taught me, by which we meet."
Croft nodded. "And through which their every move may be watched. To my mind, beloved—this meeting on which she is bent at present must be brought about."
"But not by Jason!" The fires of Naia's astral body paled in swift alarm. "Not by you, beloved."
"Nay," Croft reassured her, "not by Jason, but another, in a fashion, once I am in Himyra, Robur and I shall devise."
"Hold, then." Naia paused to consider before she went on quickly. "Perchance against a woman, a woman's wits may aid you. Told she not Bathos to say this meeting would be north of Cathur—and sought she not once ere this, when before you fought to make me thine, beloved, to work harm to Tamarizia through Cathur's prince, so that the succession was lost to Koryphu, his brother, and in the elections for governor, even though he sought to gain the station, he was ignored? Think you not that in Koryphu, Scythys's younger son, you may find one with hate in his heart for this woman and an agent to your hand?"
"Aye, by Zitu!" Croft cried, gazing into her lifted face out of startled eyes. "Naia, you have said it. Koryphu, and he will consent, is the man."
And so to Scira, capital city of Cathur, he willed himself.
Long familiarity with Scira made it easy for him to reach the residence, which, after the overthrow of his family, had become the home of Cathur's lesser prince. And there he found Koryphu, always unlike Kyphallos, his brother, more or less of a student, already busy with the tablets and scrolls that as yet in Tamarizia took the place of books. Satisfied that his man would be easy to locate when needed, he returned to the galley at once.
Thereafter followed a weird four days and nights, during the lighted portion of which Croft occupied himself as best he might, while the galley plowed across the Central Sea toward the mouth of the Na, up which lay Himyra. And when the daylight faded he stretched himself on the couch in his apartment and joined Naia in the spirit, going with her north to a Zollarian seaport, and from it in gnuppa-drawn conveyances wherein the passengers reclined on deeply padded cushions, toward Berla, discovering thereby that no matter what Kalamita may have said to Bathos regarding the place of Naia's holding, she was to be taken to the seat of the Zollarian government first. So much he had learned both from his astral conversations with her and the remarks of the guards which reached his ears, by the time Himyra was reached.
Himyra. Croft stepped upon its quays, where lapped the yellow Na, with a feeling of relief. Himyra—home. It was so he regarded that red city more than any other place on Palos outside his own house. Himyra—it was here he had labored—here he had molded the present strength of the Tamarizian nation—from here he had gone twice to make good his claims of that strength—here, outside the circling walls towering like ruddy buttes above the sands of the Aphurian desert, he had seen Naia of Aphur, read love in the depths of her purple eyes first.
"Jason!"
He whirled, to behold Robur coming toward him from a motur.
"Rob!" He turned in his direction.
They met, and Robur clasped him to his breast.
"My brother in all but birth," he said with emotion. "Would Zitu he had not sent this thing upon you. Gaya sends her greeting. Myself I timed your arrival, and so soon as the gatemen reported your galley's passing, drove down to carry you to a friendly house."
"Like thee, Rob," Croft said, his heart warmed by such a meeting. "In Himyra, and thy presence, I breathe easier than for days. Bathos, my servant, has arrived?"
"The sun before this," Robur returned as they moved toward his waiting motur. "Himyra, Aphur, and Robur stand ready to aid you in all things toward the rescue of our cousin. Jason need but say the word."
"Presently," said Croft, "when I sit in the presence of Gaya and Robur, my true friends."
Suddenly he found himself yearning for the compassion of the gentle, brown-haired matron, Robur's wife, who ere this had listened with patient understanding to his troubles—had aided him more than she knew herself in Naia's wooing. He laid a hand on Robur's knee as the Aphurian drove the motur up the easy grade of the embankment to reach the thoroughfare fronting the Na. "Then, Rob, must you aid me both as a man and an avenger indeed."
"Zitu!" Robur eyed him. "Are you, then, so broken?"
Croft's expression hardened, his voice deepened.
"Aye—I am shaken, Rob, but—once let my course in this be plain, and you shall find me far from a broken reed."
"Hai!" Robur nodded. "That is better—more like the old Jason. For a moment you dismayed me."
He reached the top of the embankment and increased the motur's speed.
In through the wide doors of the palace, with their doglike guardians of stone, and their weblike wings, to the red court where blue men sprinkled water upon the ruddy pavement, he drove. Past sentries armed with spears and short swords, who sprang to swift attention at sight of Aphur's governor, and the Mouthpiece of Zitu—the wonder worker of their nation, descending from one of his own creations—he led Croft into a private wing of the palace, and through it to the inner court, where Gaya waited on a couch beneath a striped awning, close to the sun-kissed waters of the bathing pool.
Croft's heart swelled as he once more entered the well-known lounging place. Here Naia and Robur and he had played at ball more than once together. Here it was she had called him Aquor, when they bathed. And in those shimmering waters he had caught his "little silver fish". For a moment his eyes dimmed as he bent above Gaya's hand, in silent salutation, not trusting himself to speak—so that, moved by a swift emotion, the woman caught his face as he raised it between her palms and kissed him on the cheek.
"Jason, my friend," she said softly, "take thought that the ways of Zitu are past understanding, and that from this further ordeal now laid upon you may come a double peace."
"Hai!" exclaimed Robur quickly. "Give heed to her, Jason. At times she seems given prophetic vision. Perchance this double peace is for thee and Tamarizia also."
"Zitu grant it," said Croft, deeply affected by Gaya's greeting. "It is of that we must speak after I have made certain things plain."
Robur nodded. Gaya returned to the couch. The two men drew other seats beside her, and Croft narrated his story.
"First in my mind comes this meeting with the woman herself. Since she journeys first to Berla, it is certain some time must still elapse ere she goes to her hunting lodge. And as regards the meeting itself, here is what I propose." He rapidly outlined a plan for sending a Tamarizian party into the mountains north of Cathur, and at the last he mentioned Koryphu's name.
"Hai!" Robur's face lighted. "Now, by Zitu, Jason, you have found the proper man. True is he in his heart, as I believe, and a sufferer from his brother's treason. He should welcome this task as a means of proving his loyalty to his nation and in so much reestablishing himself—and where were a better agent to represent us before this unclean woman, by whom his brother was disgraced?"
"Naia brought the man to my mind," said Jason, unwilling to appropriate the credit.
"Aye"—Gaya smiled—"the step savors of a woman. Kalamita will gain small satisfaction when she meets him face to face. It is a proper choice."
"He lies at Scira?" Robur questioned.
Croft nodded. "Aye—I have visited him in spirit inside the last five days—and found him busy with tablets and scrolls, more student than man of affairs."
"Then," Robur declared with quick decision, "we go to Scira and lay the matter before him without delay."
"Nay"—Croft shook his head—"first shall I be present in Berla in my own fashion when Naia arrives. Meanwhile, Robur, you and I arrange other details for the mission to this meeting, and prepare to reopen the shops."
For a moment Robur regarded him out of narrowed eyes, and then he nodded. "Has the Mouthpiece of Zitu some new device for the making, he will find me ready to work with him upon it as in the past."
Jason smiled at his ready acceptance. There had been no time when he had failed to find Robur's interest in the modern innovations he had introduced on Palos lacking, or had been denied his aid in their production. The Aphurian was of a most progressive mind.
"Nay," he said now, "I know not, nor will till after this meeting with the Zollarian woman. And after that it may be I shall revisit earth."
"Earth!" Robur exclaimed. "When last you attempted such a matter, the thing was an affair of Zitrans. Think you—"
"Hold, Rob," Jason interrupted. "Within the last cycle—I have visited and conversed with a man of earth in the spirit rather than the flesh."
Gaya caught her breath sharply. Both she and Robur knew the history of Croft's former mundane existence. Yet now she seemed shaken.
"Jason," she faltered, "as man I know you, yet are there times when to me you seem more like to a spirit in man's form even as on a time Zud of Zitra said." Her eyes were wide.
Croft turned to her.
"Man is a spirit, Gaya, my friend and wife of my all but brother," he said slowly. "Yet now my spirit is heavy, in that I am a man bereft. Wherefore, ere this thing be finished, I shall work in body and spirit to regain what I have lost."
"Enough," Robur prompted. "This is between ourselves. Man thou art, and husband and father. This visit to earth has somewhat to do with a new device?"
"Aye—should nothing develop from the meeting after Koryphu's return, if he accepts. Rob, have you stores in plenty of metals, rubber, and cloth?"
"Aye, in plenty—and if not, since Koryphu's mission will take the best part of a Zitran to arrange and carry out, it were possible to put double shifts at the forges and send the weavers to their looms."
"Then do so," Jason accepted, filling his chest with a heavy inhalation, "for it is in my mind that ere Naia and Jason, Son of Jason, shall see Aphur again strange things shall be seen in the skies."
"In the skies!" Robur cried, his dark eyes flashing.
"Aye," said the Mouthpiece of Zitu, "in the skies."
CHAPTER V
IN BERLA
Freedom of action, cooperation, a friendly understanding, marked the following days for Croft. That night he visited Naia while his body lay in a room in Robur's part of the palace, covered with a silken tissue, worked over by Gaya's own maids, whom she sent to rub into its stalwart muscles, soft, nourishing, perfumed ointments, such as the Tamarizian nobles used.
He found the Zollarian party not far from Berla, confident that the succeeding day would see them inside the city itself. He returned to Himyra for a few hours, spoke with Gaya and Robur, stretched himself out once more, and willed himself back to Naia, and slipped into the conveyance where she rode with Maia and Jason, very much as he had sat and gazed upon her, drunk with the beauty of her, the day he had seen her first outside Himyra's lifted walls. So it was he had promised her the night before he would accompany her into Berla when she arrived.
The entry itself was made a spectacle for the crowds. In fact, it was clear to Croft that the thing was staged. Whatever doubts he may have entertained concerning Zollaria's participation in Kalamita's abduction of Naia and Jason as a state, vanished, leaving a cold conviction that the woman had acted less as an individual than in an agent's place.
Outside the walls of Berla the party was halted by a patrol. The curtains on Naia's carriage were drawn back, leaving the occupants exposed. Guardsmen approached and placed golden bands joined by a golden chain upon her slender ankles, and on her arms. A chariot such as the Zollarians used in war, save that it was burnished to the last degree, as it advanced behind green-plumed gnuppas harnessed four abreast, emerged from Berla's gate and deposited a massively built warrior, in splendid harness, beside the conveyance in which Kalamita rode.
Croft recognized Bandhor, general of the Zollarian army, as Kalamita appeared. She flung herself from her carriage, her face distorted with displeasure, almost before his chariot had paused with lunging steeds.
"By Bel, what is the meaning of this interference with my entry into the city?" she broke forth in a voice of passion.
"Interference! Nay, it is a triumph. They make a holiday of your return with your captives, priestess of beauty," Bandhor roared.
"Holiday? Triumph?" the woman repeated with a curling lip. "Are we then at war, Bandhor, since I departed?"
"Nay," he returned, viewing her rage with what seemed a sense of amusement. "Nor will be—since Kalamita brings with her the guarantees of peace. Come, I will lead you into the city."
For a moment his sister considered, tapping the metal of the roadway with a sandaled foot. Plainly her displeasure in this change of whatever plans she may have had was in no way diminished, but in the end she accepted. "So be it. But wait." She turned and disappeared into her carriage, from which after some few moments she again emerged.
She had altered her dress, and now in the Sirian sun she blazed. Jeweled shields, supported against her fair skin by a gem-incrusted harness, covered her breast—a green skirt embroidered with flashing stones fell from a scintillating girdle about her hips and thighs. Green were the plumes above her tawny hair, and the sandals on her feet, the casings on her calves. A barbaric picture, she strode toward Bandhor's car with its restive gnuppas.
"If we triumph, let us triumph fitly," she said in scornful fashion, and stepped into the driver's place. "It is my pleasure, Bandhor, my brother, to lead my triumph myself."
Gathering the reins into her hands, she turned the gnuppas back toward the gate of the city in a swirling smother of dust.
"Thou tawny devil!" Bandhor cried, his eyes flashing with admiration as he caught the tail of the rocking car and sprang aboard. "Forward, Zollarians—into the city!"
The patrol that had stopped them formed on either side of Naia's carriage. Kalamita's party fell in behind it. They passed through the gate, and between the living banks of a swarming, jostling, neck-craning crowd that lined the main avenue of Berla as far as the eye could reach.
Their advent excited a roar. Small doubt but their identity was known—or that this haling of the wife and child of the strong man of Tamarizia, captive, seemed a triumph to the minds of the Zollarian populace indeed. Yells, shrieks, and screeches filled the air. Curses of every degree of vileness were mouthed. The mob jostled, pressed closer to the carriage of the captives. Someone threw a stone. Naia lifted Jason and placed him under the rear wall of the conveyances, where it curved upward to form the canopy or top.
Her body formed a shield before him. For the rest, her pale face remained unmoved in its haughty calmness. Watching her, Croft's heart was filled with pride. Maia crept to her and crouched on the cushions beside her, plainly frightened. But save for that instinctive guarding of her offspring, Naia of Aphur gave no sign of fear.
"Hail to Kalamita, priestess of beauty. Hail Bandhor. Hail to Kalamita, who brings to Zollaria those through whom she shall be made once more stronger than the strongest," the populace roared.
It occurred to Croft to see how Kalamita herself was receiving the acclamation. He left Naia's vehicle briefly and joined himself to the woman, reining the prancing gnuppas with a practised hand.
He found her face wreathed in a forced smile, and her tawny eyes, back of their fringing lashes, ablaze.
"Who has spread the report that these shall make Zollaria strong?" she hissed at her brother.
"Helmor," he told her after a moment's hesitation. "So soon as your advance messenger reached Berla, he commanded the success of your mission announced."
"Helmor," said Kalamita thickly. "Him whom Tamarizia has most grievously defeated. Is the emperor one to gain credit from my work before the masses, or a fool to consider a thing as accomplished ere it is done? Was it not agreed between us, Bandhor, that after she should have been brought quietly to Berla she should be taken into the mountains until I had tricked this Tamarizian Mouthpiece?"
"To a meeting?" Bandhor muttered.
"Aye, to a meeting," said his sister, "after which he also would have been in our hands."
"Provided he came to the meeting."
"Came?" Kalamita curled her lips as she answered. "You, Bandhor, are one to whom women are no more than a moment's toys, but to that one, that pale-faced creature, behind us, means more. Aye, he had come, for I sent word that I held the woman, and bade him to a meeting to give ear to my demands."
"By Bel," growled Bandhor, "Helmor believes it not, and who was Bandhor to stay his hand? Say what you will to me, my sister, but, once we reach the palace, curb your tongue."
"Nay—I fear him not." Kalamita shrugged her shoulders. "This display is a mistake, as I shall show him. The matter should have been conducted in quiet, till it was past."
Vastly pleased that Kalamita's plans were already going contrary to her liking, Croft returned to Naia, and remained throughout the noisy progress until the palace was reached, and she was led inside between double rows of guards.
Into the palace of Helmor, Emperor of all Zollaria, her golden head proudly lifted, Naia of Aphur passed, walking with steady footsteps once her shackles were removed. And Maia followed across a huge interior similar in most respects to the Tamarizian structures, bearing in her blue arms Jason's son. Palace guards opened a door before them. They passed into an audience chamber to stand before Helmor at last.
He sat there on a silver chair upon a dais, the steps leading to which were spread with gorgeously colored rugs. And as her guards led Naia of Aphur toward him, with Kalamita and her brother close behind them, he glowered.
Croft knew him by sight. There had been a time when he had forced him on a stricken field to enter his own armored motur, prisoner of war, and guarantee of an early peace, on the day Zollaria's hopes of conquest over Tamarizia had gone down in red defeat. And now he watched as he opened his lips to speak, in a somewhat taunting fashion:
"Greetings to Naia of Aphur, whose presence gives all Zollaria pleasure, in that times are changed, and that where once Helmor was held hostage for Tamarizia's demands, Naia and her child are now the guests of Helmor until their ransom be paid."
For a moment the woman before him said nothing, staring straight back into his gloating visage out of steady purple eyes. And then her lips parted. "And were apt to be a guest overlong, should Zollaria ask more than Naia of Aphur, or any other woman, were worth?"
"Say you so?" Helmor seemed somewhat taken aback by that haughty response, at which the quick fires of admiration stirred in Jason's spirit. "Yet perchance the Tamarizian Mouthpiece will place upon her a greater valuation than she lays upon herself."
"Those things lie with the gods, Helmor of Zollaria," Naia said, though at mention of Jason her delicate nostrils twitched.
"Did Helmor say that this woman lies as his guest?" Kalamita cut into the ensuing pause.
Helmor turned his eyes upon her. "Aye, priestess of beauty, now that you have so faithfully accomplished the task entrusted to you."
"The first step, Helmor," Kalamita dared to correct him, advancing close to the foot of the dais. "Naught save that is accomplished as yet. And was it not agreed between us that she should remain in my charge until after I had met this Mouthpiece and spoken with him?"
"Aye," Helmor admitted somewhat sharply. "But—since you departed upon your mission I have taken thought."
"And Helmor has thought what?" Kalamita stiffened, drawing up her supple, unrestrained figure to its fullest height.
Helmor's visage darkened. "That were this Mouthpiece as clever as he appears, he will not fall into your trap. Wherefore, it were best to retain the woman and child he values in a strong place."
"And forsake the meeting on which we were agreed and of which I have already sent this Mouthpiece word?" Kalamita questioned further.
"Nay." Helmor smiled. "The meeting shall take place. Said you aught in your message, save that she was held by you in a place he knew not of, and that he needs must speak with you of her ransom?"
"Does Helmor think Kalamita a fool?" The Zollarian adventuress smiled.
"Nay—the question were useless, since it was in her mind the matter first had shape," said the man on the dais.
"And Helmor, who changed his form, sending Bandhor and his guardsmen forth to change into a paltry triumph what had been better carried out in secret, nor mentioned until the matter were concluded, in the judgment of her who, as Helmor himself declares, conceived it first," the woman before him retorted and broke off. Her tawny eyes were flashing, the green plumes above her upflung head were aquiver, the jeweled shields against her rosy bosom rose and fell quickly as she panted rather than breathed.
For a time Helmor regarded her closely before he answered.
"Enough," he said at last. "Much may be forgiven to beauty—and much I forgive to Kalamita. Yet lies there a point beyond which Helmor grants it not to any man or woman to question his words. Wherefore give ear, and heed to Helmor. This meeting shall take place. Since naught was said of Zollaria's part in the woman's capture, wherein falls it out any different from what was planned—save that she lies in Berla rather than in another place, under Helmor's protection rather than in fair Kalamita's hands?"
"Helmor does not trust his agent with a thing of so much value?" Kalamita flung her challenge full at the emperor of her nation, taunting him, daring him, as it seemed, to answer.
And all at once it seemed that Helmor evaded.
"Nay," he said slowly. "None doubts Kalamita's loyalty to the interests of her nation. Yet were it best for her to lie doubly safe should Zollaria's demands be refused, or this Mouthpiece fail to appear at the meeting she has proposed."
Once more the form of Kalamita stiffened into a haughty posture.
"Refused?" she flared. "Nay, Tamarizia dares not refuse, since I shall say to their Mouthpiece that I have taken an oath that unless Zollaria's demands are quickly granted I shall offer the child in sacrifice to Bel. And by Bel himself—"
Naia of Aphur caught her breath and drew back a pace, staring at the woman before her out of widened eyes, as innocence may always stare at the incarnation of vice.
So for a horrified instant she stood, and then, turning to Maia, swiftly she seized the child, straining it for a moment to her breast, and then extending it on quivering arms, uplifted to the man above her.
"Helmor of Zollaria—in the name of Zitu!" she cried.
"Hold!" Helmor roared. "Peace, Naia of Aphur. It seems well I have decided on your safety."
He turned to Kalamita. "And it seems clear to me, sister of Bandhor, that in this you would serve your aims of vengeance as well as your country's ends. Ere this it has come to my ears you have cause for anger against this Mouthpiece because of a slight placed upon you. And in that it is not my wish to in any way obstruct you, save only as toward a glutting of your hatred against him, you would lessen Zollaria's chances of gain. Yet an oath to Bel is not to be lightly broken. And—should Tamarizia finally refuse to yield in this matter or chance a resort to arms against us, we may surely need his favor. Wherefore I pledge you the word of Helmor that, should those things transpire, I shall place the child directly in your hands."
"Helmor has spoken." With an unholy light in her voluptuous face, Kalamita knelt before him.
Croft writhed in his spirit, at the meaning of Helmor's words—the picture of Jason, Son of Jason, torn from the breast against which now he rested all unknowing, and fed into Bel's foul body filled with flame. The thing was unthinkable to a man or woman of a nation where the gods were no longer savage spirits to be appeased by blood and suffering, but divinities actuated by mercy and love.
And, too, a sudden swift regret assailed him that though he had known of Kalamita's purpose from the first, he had said nothing concerning it to Naia, thinking thereby to save her from the consideration of it. For now the horror came upon her without warning, and she swayed upon her feet so that Maia put out a hand and drew her back against her body in support, and Kalamita, noting the action, turned to her from Helmor.
"What now of that spirit you boasted would not break before me, Tamarizian?" she hissed.
The thing struck Naia of Aphur like a whip and saved her from what seemed an impending collapse. She forced up her head to meet her tormentor's taunt.
"As yet it has not broken," she denied. "Rather will Zollaria's footmen, her horsemen, her nobles, all that strength of which she has boasted in the past, be broken if this thing is dared. And think not the blood of a suckling will give Bel strength enough to aid you, against the vengeance Zitu's Mouthpiece shall send upon you. Zollaria may call upon Bel in that day, but—by Zitu, I swear it—she shall call in vain."
"Enough," said Helmor. "Guards, let this woman be removed, with her child and slave, and kept in a safe place under penalty of death to them who watch her, if save by Helmor's orders, they be harmed. Kalamita, arise. You will depart to the place appointed for this meeting, so soon as we have considered together concerning Zollaria's demands."
Kalamita rose to her feet. Naia's guards led her and Maia out.
Croft went with them. Already he knew in the main what Zollaria would ask—knew in his soul that her demands must be refused for Tamarizia's good. There remained then naught for him save to support Naia in so far as he could in the spirit, and devise some means of freeing her from her present position, other than any true consideration of what Zollaria might propose.
And now it appeared to him that the best he could do was to bring about delay in whatever negotiations might grow out of the situation—to see them dragged out without a definite decision—to gain time, wherein he might think and scheme. Or if there were no other way, seek to perfect some such device with which to strike a counter-blow against Kalamita's nation as that I had proposed.
Such thoughts held him, therefore, as he followed out of the audience room and along a corridor and down a flight of steps to a room deep amid the foundations of the palace into which Naia and her maid and child were thrust.
A litter of straw was upon the floor. It was dimly lighted by a single oil-lamp in a sconce against one wall. There was a copper couch with a none-too-clean sleeping pad upon it, and nothing more. With a quick rebellion of the spirit, Croft found himself thinking that it was not so Helmor, when a prisoner of Tamarizia, had been housed.
Yet he had no fear of Naia's welfare, the measure of her endurance, remembering how she had lain in the forests of Mazzeria, her fair skin blue so that she might seem one of their own women to any Mazzerian prowler, when she had flown to his rescue over Atla's walls, during the Mazzerian war. Wherefore he waited until Maia had induced her to stretch herself upon the couch, and taking the child in her arms had crouched beside her on the straw, rocking it gently and crooning to it a quaint Tamarizian song. And then as Naia's lips moved and he caught her whisper, "Beloved," he answered:
"I am here."
She sighed, and her body relaxed as its astral tenant stole forth.
"You heard all, beloved?" she questioned as they sat together in the weird communion of spirit with spirit that was theirs.
"Aye," Croft told her.
"Now Zitu help us!" Naia of Aphur cried. "For if my spirit be not broken, as I said to that fiend in the form of woman, yet it is shaken within me, Jason, because of that little life Maia now holds in her arms."
"Nay—fear not." Jason drew her to him and told her his plan to gain delay while perfecting his other plans. "Azil gave not the spirit of our son to us, beloved, to be set free in Bel's unclean arms."
"Zitu grant it." Naia glanced about the barren chamber. "Forgive me my weakness, Jason. If delay seems best to you, I shall endure it, so you come to me frequently to tell me of all of your progress."
"Aye." Croft's soul rebelled at the thought of her durance in such quarters, though there seemed nothing else for it. Still the thing hardened his purpose, drove one more argument nail-like into the determination forming in his mind. "Here we may meet in safety since Helmor himself denies all access to you. And I shall visit earth, beloved, ere I come to thee again."
"Earth?" Naia's glance flamed with quick understanding.
"Aye." For a moment man and woman looked into one another's eyes, sensing those things as yet in the dark womb of the future, before Croft concluded his answer with a grim assurance. "And when I return, unless our good friend has failed in his efforts, strange things shall come once more out of Aphur, and even as Naia of Aphur warned them in a prophecy of horror, Helmor and Bandhor's shameless sister shall call on their impotent god in vain."
"Zitu!" Naia's astral form lighted with comprehension of his meaning. "Now are you Mouthpiece of Zitu again wholly."
Behind them the blue girl of Mazzeria still crooned to the child which she was holding in her arms.
These things Croft told me on the night he kept his promise to visit me again. From Berla he went to Himyra first, speaking with Gaya and Robur, directing the latter to mobilize the workmen who had labored on the airplanes, before the Mazzerian war. Croft also visited the motur shops and gave command for the immediate inception of work on engines of a somewhat more powerful design than any used on Palos heretofore.
Robur accompanied him on his rounds, his lips set, his dark eyes flashing as he listened to Croft's directions concerning his as yet, to Rob, not fully understood plans, his admonitions for the production of a certain quality of cloth, the mixing of vast quantities of what was in reality little more than a rubberized paint. But at least here was work to hand in plenty—and work that spoke of more work to follow, to the Aphurian's mind.
Furthermore, Croft requested that he see what airplanes were already constructed, thoroughly overhauled, as part of the preparation for Koryphu's mission into the mountains north of Cathur. And that part of his intentions he explained.
"They follow a course of deception already, Rob, and two may play at the game. Much must be done ere we attempt a rescue, and toward the doing we must needs gain time. Wherefore since to the minds of Helmor and Kalamita it is unknown that I am forewarned of their intent to hold Naia in Berla, rather than in the place of which by Bathos she sent me word, it appears best to me that we make it seem we are deceived. These planes shall mount the air from Cathur, therefore, and fly above the mountains in advance of Koryphu's party, as though seeking for some place of concealment, wherein her captives may lie hid. Thus we shall help Kalamita play her part to her mind at least, and perchance throw at least some dust in Zollaria's eyes."
Robur nodded. "I sense your plan, Jason," he agreed. "Yet I have taken thought that a plane may fall, and that it is the secret of the moturs which Zollaria wishes in part to gain. How then if disaster comes upon one of your men? Would it not in so much weaken Tamarizia's hand?"
Croft smiled rather grimly. "Aye, Rob. The point were well taken, nor has it escaped my mind. To such an end each flier must be provided with a device by which his motur may under such conditions be destroyed, and with orders to burn his machine, escaping thereafter by the aid of the other planes on duty with him, or in any way he can."
Once more Robur nodded.
"Aye," said he, "you think of all things. And this other device toward the forming of which you are preparing?"
"Nay," Jason replied. "It depends upon my visit to earth, after which I hope to give you plans and figures."
"Zitu grant you be successful," said the Governor of Aphur. "You will seek this knowledge when?"
"Tonight," Jason told him; "after which Scira must be visited and the consent of Koryphu to head the party to this meeting with Kalamita gained. She will lose small time in hastening to it, hoping to add another prisoner to her number, despite the fact that Helmor has altered her plans."
"Aye, and were swift moturs or an airplane to descend upon her lodge after Koryphu has reached it, it might be that Tamarizia would have a prisoner to exchange with Zollaria without a longer waiting," Robur growled, and laid a tense hand on the hilt of his sword.
Croft eyed him for a moment of heavy silence.
"That, too, have I thought of, Aphur, yet though we match craft with craft and violence with violence, if the need arises, let none say that Zitu's Mouthpiece counseled the violation of an embassy's seeming or used it as a mask to another purpose than that to which it sets forth."
"But—if this Zollarian plans to trick you into her hands by such a meeting?" Robur flushed a trifle under the implied rebuke of Croft's words.
"Nay, she will fail," said Jason. "Yet think not, meaning to seize me if so it falls out according to her wishes, she will come to that place so poorly guarded that an attempt to make her captive would result in aught save a clash of arms. Wherefore let her fail of her aim and return to Berla the next time with empty hands. How stands Zollaria then, save to deal direct with Zitra, which shall quibble with her—neither accepting nor refusing, appointing a place perhaps for a more representative meeting, while you and I, Rob, labor over our designs?"
"I have talked with Zitra by means of the message tower you have placed in Himyra and upon Zitra's walls," Robur replied. "Jadgor, my father, stands ready to aid you in whatsoever way he can, and the spirit of Lakkon writhes with thoughts of his daughter. May I say to them those things with which you have made me acquainted?"
"Aye," Croft assented. "Say also that Naia sends a greeting to her father, and that at present she lies safe from harm. Come, let us return to the palace since things are now arranged."
Robur nodded. They entered his motur and drove back toward the red court, and the residential wing of the Aphurian government buildings, side by side, as they had on many another occasion when they labored together in Himyra's shops.
And that night it was Croft made his promised visit to me to discover what I had learned concerning the thing on which more than anything else Naia's rescue appeared to depend.
I was ready for him. I had not delayed in instituting my efforts at gaining the knowledge the use of which I had suggested, and I had been fortunate indeed. I had found the man I wanted almost at once—one who had served his country well in the chemical arm of the service, and was therefore qualified to give me the information of which I stood in need. My greatest difficulty had been in convincing him that I desired the knowledge for no improper use, but in the end I surmounted the task. And that night after Jason had roused me to his presence I recited the formula to him, and he cried out:
"Zitu! Murray, the thing can be accomplished! Palos holds all that will be required."
Considering the stage of life on the other planet, that was a self-evident fact, but I knew he meant more than that. Before the Mazzerian war he had established a laboratory at Himyra in which he and Naia had gone more or less fully into chemical matters, and I felt he was fully assured concerning the things of which he spoke.
"Good," I said, "then you can make it?"
His thought waves beat back at me in a very passion of conviction. "Yes, and we'll carry it to them in something like your earth-born blimps—isn't that what you told me you called them when I was here in your institution as a patient?"
"Blimps—dirigibles, you mean?" I questioned.
"Yes," he said. "That's what I've been considering making, though I haven't told Rob about it yet. They'll be far more stable for the purpose than planes."
"Why, yes," I agreed. "Croft, it's a rather peculiar thing, but before the armistice was signed in Europe each side was planning to blot out the major cities of the opposing nations beneath a fiery rain."
For that was the thing I had proposed to Jason, and the secret for the production of the unquenchable liquid fire which could be stored and carried, and sprayed in a rain of death upon those against whom it was used, was the thing I had gained from Captain Gaylor, formerly connected with the department of gas and flame.
Horrible—well, yes, but surely subtly suited to Croft's needs for use against the nation which, enraged by the defeat of its former plans for aggrandizement at the expense of the country he served, had struck against the most sacred, the highest and holiest interests of his life—seeking in such fashion, rather than by any legitimate method, to finally effect their aims—a nation, a representative of which I myself had heard in the spirit at least vow that, unless those aims were thereby accomplished, an innocent child should be sacrificed to a savage deity by fire.
Yet because of Kalamita's oath and Helmor's agreement, a move to exercise force in her rescue would be equally fatal, unless—well, unless it was a force that could strike silently and swiftly—a force in the nature of a total and terrifying surprise. And surely the blimps—the dirigible balloons Croft suggested, equipped with a flame-spraying device and plenty of liquid fire, might well prove a terrifying, a paralyzing spectacle to even Helmor's and Kalamita's eyes. Paralyzing not only to the body, but to the brain itself—warranted to make simple any bargain which would preserve themselves and Berla from a blazing rain of death.
His whole astral presence glowed with the intensity of his emotions, the deadly determination by which he was stirred. For the first time I realized fully how he had won Naia against all opposition, and had carried all before him in Palos after he gained existence on the planet in the flesh. No ordinary mind could stand against such concentrated mental force.
"By Zitu," I cried, "I believe you!" I felt a quiver shake me. It was as though already the doom of Helmor's plans and Kalamita's vengeance was sealed. "Croft," I questioned, "you know the general nature of these blimps?"
"Aye," he nodded. "But if you have any suggestions, Murray—"
"Well," I said, "Captain Gaylor gave me the general plan in describing how the stuff you're going to demonstrate to Helmor was to be carried—as well as a description of the fire bombs they meant to carry aboard their planes. You know just before the armistice, Jason, there was talk of a new deadlier gas. In reality it wasn't gas at all, but this stuff of which I've told you. The gas talk was just a mask."
"Go on—tell me, Murray," he prompted tensely. "Give me all you can to begin with, though if I get stuck I'll be back again, of course."
"Of course," I said, and told him all I knew myself, while he drank in my descriptions, storing them in his mind for future use, his expression firing now and then as he pictured the creation of the monster envelopes, the suspended cars, the motive power by which they should be flown across the Central Sea and Mazhur, to hang a sudden embodiment of Tamarizia's answer, above Berla, freighted with their deadly stores.
"Murray," he exclaimed when I had finished, "Naia of Aphur, and Jason, Son of Jason, will owe you their salvation."
I couldn't answer, and I didn't try. I said instead, "The thing seems plausible to me, Croft."
"Plausible," he repeated. "It shall be accomplished. Now, Koryphu may start upon his mission, while every shop and forge in Himyra roars."
I asked a question. "By the way, how does the populace cotton to this fresh Zollarian move?"
"They don't know it yet, old fellow." He gave me a glance. "You know, Murray, Tamarizia, even yet, isn't earth. There's only the wireless between Himyra and Zitra, and a telegraph across the Gateway to Scira in Cathur—but in view of what's going to happen in Himyra almost at once—the preparations, I mean—I think I'll tell them, and suggest that in Zitra the masses be informed by Zud—that Zollaria has struck at the Mouthpiece of Zitu in order to coerce the nation. It won't do any harm to have the sympathy of the populace behind us in this."
"Nor in Scira," I said. "Cathur hasn't forgotten how nearly she was enslaved, I imagine—or that her fate would have been the same as Mazhur's for fifty years, if it had not been for the Mouthpiece of Zitu's intervention in hers and Tamarizia's behalf. And see here, Croft—if you've a telegraph up there, why don't you send Koryphu a message instead of going after him yourself? You've enough to tend to in the matter of the blimps without trapesing about."
He smiled for the first time. "It might do here, but not on Palos, Murray. They're great for delegations, personal representation—the old ways. You can't change them all at once. But—it won't do any harm to announce my coming or its reason, or that the Mouthpiece of Zitu comes in person to the house of Koryphu. That in itself might even serve in preparing the mind of Cathur's prince for the proposition I shall make him once I arrive. According to Palosian standards, Murray, even though it sounds bald for me to say so, such an occasion should be an important event in Koryphu's life."
"Yes," I agree and nodded. More and more it impressed me that Croft's mind was working again in its normal fashion, now he had actually decided on a definite course. "Being honored by a visit from the Mouthpiece of Zitu, publicly announced in connection with Zollaria's action, ought to impress him favorably, I guess. His fellow citizens can scarcely fail to draw the connection, and besides it will give him a chance to put a spoke in Kalamita's wheel, perhaps—at least to meet the woman who brought disgrace and death upon his brother face to face. If he's human, Jason, he'll accept."
"He's human enough," said Croft. "Murray, I actually feel as though I were facing some positive action at last. It's a relief. Ever since this thing happened I've been in an even worse state than I was after I'd seen Naia first—and before I'd managed to acquire a physical life on Palos. There was a barrier between us then that seemed insurmountable, as you know, and yet I knew her, the one woman, in all the teeming multitudes of feminine spirits I had ever longed to know. I—I knew her—mine. And now there's another barrier between us, scarcely less fatal, though of a different kind."
"But—you overcame the first, and—"
"I'll overcome the second," he interrupted in a flash. "I get your meaning, and I'll do it. Zitu, what did I not overcome to reach her in the first place! But I reached her, and I'll reach her again."
I didn't doubt it. Again I felt to its full the driving power in the will of Jason Croft. And at last the man was aroused—at last he had become less man, torn and harried by the loss of his dearest possessions, than an intelligent fighting force. Or so he impressed me as he sat there in the astral body, while his physical form lay billions of miles beyond us both, in Himyra, at Robur's house.
"Aye, you'll reach her," I said, and looked him in the eyes. "You'll reach her, Croft, and Naia and Jason, Son of Jason, will come back to Aphur and to Jason's house."
"Aye, by Zitu! Murray, your words fire me. I go to make them true, and Zitu guard you!"
He vanished, leaving me to open my bodily eyes.
Darkness met them. There was naught but the night in the room. Yet I had seen Jason's figure plainly while we conversed, and I did not doubt he had been able to equally perceive mine. What, then, was the answer? Was there no darkness to the spirit, even as between Palos and earth outside of the atmospheric envelope there was no time? Was the riddle held in that? Was there no such thing as darkness, concealment to the understanding mind?
Was it only the objective eye for which light was a necessity toward making the truths of creation plain? Was it only the physical ear that required the vibration of sound? Were time, light, sound, touch, but material things? Was rhythm the basic principle of soul existence as expressed in mind? Certainly Croft and I conversed as easily by thought transference, a variant of astral vibration, as in the body we would have used spoken words. What, then? Were life, consciousness, rhythm, all, but expressions of a universal force—existing already bridgelike between God's far-flung worlds?